Donald Trump

[stevebrooks]

And the news is Trump's pick, Gym Jordan, can't get the numbers, and that his attempts to force a floor vote would be disastrous. Now here is why the GOP have had it, apparently Scalise, who got 113 votes compared to Jordan's mere 99 in the first vote dropped out because....the extremists stated straight out that they would just keep having vote after vote until he either gave in or Jordan won. Yes this is the mentality they are dealing with, and Scalise knew then that he would never get the speaker position, they will allow no-one but their own to be the nominee even if they are not the choice of the majority of Republican's and they stand no chance of winning. The majority of Republican's gave in to their demands once, it now appears it has encouraged them to believe they will give in ever time, who would have expected that outcome?

According to reports there are at least 40 no votes against Jordan, which means he can't win....but worse there are at least 20 "never, ever will they vote for Jordan" Republican's in the house. That's 20 he can't flip, and he needs every Republican apart from 4 votes to win, so he's never going to get the numbers, but the extremists don't care, it will just go on this way until the government shuts down, or the moderate Republicans finally grow a spine and elect Hakeem Jeffrey's in to speaker. Now it's been stated by many democratic leaning news sites that that's almost unthinkable, the odds are so small of that happening it unbelievable. But you have one side with zero chance, the other side with a vanishingly small chance, the unthinkable can indeed happen.

[stevebrooks]

Support for Republicans among Republican voters is dropping across every demographic in the US, the drop is particularly high in non-Trump supporters, and even Trump supporters are polling strongly that the Republican's in congress should be working with Democrats to pass needed legislation. Disapproval is soaring among independents, which is exactly the demographic the Democrats need to gather to themselves, the longer this farce continues the worse it will get for the Republicans and harder it be to claw back non-Trump and independent voters.

However, imagine for a moment there is still no speaker and government shuts down because the Republicans still can't agree on a speaker. While it might be argued that some or a lot of blame falls to the President when a government shuts down, that's assuming there is even anything for him to actually negotiate on, to try and bring some sort of agreement. I don't see any way they can swing that into a win for themselves of the still haven't elected a speaker, that's a dead set loss!

[stevebrooks]

As expected the first round of votes for speaker left Gym Jordan short of votes, 20 voted for other people, 200 for Gym Jordan, 212 for Hakeem Jeffries. Jordan said he is willing to go on with more rounds, I expect he thinks the holdouts will get tired of it and eventually vote for him, but what if instead they decide to vote for Jeffries? It would be the end of their political careers in the Republican party for sure, but maybe some of them are already thinking they have had it with this lot and decide to do it anyway.....oh well let the circus continue!

[stylofone]

As expected the first round of votes for speaker left Gym Jordan short of votes, 20 voted for other people, 200 for Gym Jordan, 212 for Hakeem Jeffries. Jordan said he is willing to go on with more rounds, I expect he thinks the holdouts will get tired of it and eventually vote for him, but what if instead they decide to vote for Jeffries? It would be the end of their political careers in the Republican party for sure, but maybe some of them are already thinking they have had it with this lot and decide to do it anyway.....oh well let the circus continue!

Thinking about government shutdown... normally it happens because the House won't/can't agree of a spending bill. But what it there was a government shutdown because there was no speaker, therefore the House couldn't even function to vote on a spending bill. Then the whole national trauma of the shutdown would give added motivation for the Republican holdouts to do something slightly less insane than usual.

I just checked, the temporary funding bill that prompted McCarthy's ouster expires on November 17th. Could they keep this circus going for that long and have no speaker AND no money to run the government?

[stevebrooks]

2nd round of voting worse than the first, he's actually lost ground not gained any votes, that's not a good sign. On the other hand he's showing everyone what sort of person he is as the Rep's who voted against him are now dealing with their family who are receiving threatening texts from Jordan supporters, that'll show em.....umm, apparantly it didn't!

As the speaker battle drags on, tensions and frustration have risen among House Republicans. Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart told CNN on Wednesday Jordan would lose a “bigger chunk” of GOP floor votes on a third ballot. Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas derided what he called the “attack, attack, attack” tactics of Jordan allies against his Republican opponents: "Attack the members who don’t agree with you, attack them, beat them into submission,” he said. The wife of holdout GOP Rep. Don Bacon received anonymous text messages, with one reading, "Your husband will not hold any political office ever again. What a disappointment and failure he is."

Going in for a third vote today, the loser will lose more I am guessing!

Other controversial moves possible include expanding the powers of the, ahem, "un-elected" interim speaker to a position that places him 3rd in line to the presidency, there are serious problems there, I think everyone can agree with that. You can't just put someone in that position, it has to be voted on, you know, like the presidency?

Republican Rep. Dave Joyce of Ohio is leading the charge to expand the powers of the interim Speaker Patrick McHenry, though such a move would not be without controversy and has divided Republicans.

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-n ... index.html

[stevebrooks]

Now here's the thing that just occurred to me, they've been threatened that if they don't vote for Gym Jordan your political career is over, you won't get primaried and you will be out in the next election? Maybe someone should just mention to the holdouts, well you know if your political career is over anyway, they can't do any worse to you, why not vote for Hakeem Jeffries? What are they going to do, fire you? Lol!

[stylofone]

2nd round of voting worse than the first, he's actually lost ground not gained any votes, that's not a good sign. On the other hand he's showing everyone what sort of person he is as the Rep's who voted against him are now dealing with their family who are receiving threatening texts from Jordan supporters, that'll show em.....umm, apparantly it didn't!

More on the death threats which Jordan has unleashed, although he denies being the cause. It's not working. Who would have thought they don't like being doxxed by their own party?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/worl ... reats.html

[pipbarber]

Personally, i'm enjoying it. Couple macro-pretentious observations - duopolies in the English speaking world are amazingly vulnerable if one party bifurcates. The DNC are the beneficiaries of course but the best thing i can say about the Democrats is that they're wet liberals and who the fuck wants wet liberals in power forever (insert less worse narrative here).

Secondly, what is the point of congress again? Beside approving the next budget the US shitshow rolls on regardless, almost as though politicians aren't all that relevant to the economic prosperity of the prosperous.

[stylofone]

More to enjoy, one of the craziest and most prominent insiders from the Trump regime has flipped. I can see a trajectory here where Trump ends up in jail, but I have absolutely no idea if it will play out that way..

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -elections

[stevebrooks]

Gym Jordan surrenders to the inevitable and won't go for a third vote, or will he? Since he is the Rep nominee he can just sit there on the option forever until he thinks he has enough support, then just declare he is going to hold a vote....hows that for surrendering and not surrendering at the same time.

Meanwhile Republican pundits outside congress are pushing for giving the temporary speaker, lets be clear not elected, so not the democratic choice of congress, far more power, so in fact Republican's get to keep the speaker position and do whatever the hell they want without ever having to actually elect a speaker, which seems to be a problem for many people. The speaker position is not an appointee position, it is an elected position, not sure if it's in the constitution but it should be, there must be a rule somewhere that you can't just appoint a speaker otherwise they will try and do it every time from now on because allowing it now essentially just says "this is how you can do it"!

So, shit show extraordinaire continues on indefinitely.